Politics
Canada school shooting traced to 18‑year‑old woman with mental‑health history
- Nine people killed in remote British Columbia community.
- Police say suspect killed family members before school attack.
- Prime Minister orders flags flown at half-mast nationwide.
OTTAWA: Canadian police have identified the attacker behind one of the country’s deadliest school shootings as an 18-year-old woman with a history of mental health issues.
Authorities said she acted alone in the attack in British Columbia, which left nine people dead before she took her own life.
The killer, who police named as Jesse Van Rootselaar, committed suicide after the shooting on Tuesday in Tumbler Ridge, a remote community in the Pacific province of British Columbia. Police revised the death toll down to nine from the initially reported 10.
“Police had attended that (family) residence on multiple occasions over the past several years, dealing with concerns of mental health with respect to our suspect,” said Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald, commander of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in British Columbia.
McDonald said Van Rootselaar, who was born male but began to identify as a female six years ago, had first killed her mother, 39, and 11-year-old step-brother at the family home.
She then went to the school, where she shot a 39-year-old woman teacher as well as three 12-year-old female students and two male students, one aged 12 and one aged 13.
“We do believe the suspect acted alone … it would be too early to speculate on motive,” he told a press conference.
Earlier in the day, a visibly upset Prime Minister Mark Carney promised Canadians would get through what he called a “terrible” shooting.
Carney, who has postponed a trip to Europe, said he had ordered flags on all government buildings be flown at half-mast for the next seven days.
“We will get through this. We will learn from this,” he told reporters, at one point looking close to tears.
“But right now, it’s a time to come together, as Canadians always do in these situations, these terrible situations, to support each other, to mourn together and to grow together.”
Several prominent world leaders sent messages of condolence. King Charles, Canada’s head of state, said he was “profoundly shocked and saddened” by the deaths.
Shooting among deadliest in Canadian history
The shooting ranks among the deadliest in Canadian history. Canada has stricter gun laws than the United States, but Canadians can own firearms with a licence.
In April 2020, a 51-year-old man disguised in a police uniform and driving a fake police car shot and killed 22 people in a 13-hour rampage in the Atlantic province of Nova Scotia, before police killed him at a petrol station.
In Canada’s worst school shooting, in December 1989, a gunman killed 14 female students and wounded 13 at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal, Quebec, before committing suicide.
“There’s not a word in the English language that’s strong enough to describe the level of devastation that this community has experienced,” said Larry Neufeld, a local provincial legislator.
“It’s going to take a significant amount of effort and a significant amount of courage to repair that terror,” he told CBC News.
- Over 3,200 events planned across all 50 states of United States.
- Organisers expect more protests in smaller communities this time.
- Protests driven by backlash against Iran conflict, Trump’s policies.
Massive protests against President Donald Trump kicked off Saturday across the United States and beyond, as millions of people vent fury over what they see as his authoritarian bent and other forms of cruel, law-trampling governance.
It is the third time in less than a year that Americans have taken to the streets as part of a grassroots movement called “No Kings,” the most vocal and visual conduit for opposition to Trump since he began his second term in January 2025.
Now they have something new to fume over — the war against Iran that Trump launched alongside Israel, with ever-shifting goals and timelines for completion.
The anti-Trump mood has spilled beyond US borders, with rallies Saturday in European cities including Amsterdam, Madrid and Rome.
US protests began in several cities, including Atlanta, where thousands of people gathered in a park to decry authoritarianism.
One man at the rally held a sign that read “We Are Losing Our Democracy.”
In the Michigan town of West Bloomfield, near Detroit, people braved below-freezing temperatures to protest.
Record numbers expected
The first “No Kings” nationwide protest day came last June on Trump´s 79th birthday and coincided with a military parade he organised in Washington. Several million people turned out, from New York to San Francisco.
The second such protest, in October, drew an estimated seven million protesters, according to organisers.
The goal now is to bring out even more people Saturday, as Trump´s approval rating sinks below 40% and midterm elections loom in November, when Trump´s Republicans could lose control of both chambers of Congress.
Just as Trump is worshipped by many in his “Make America Great Again” movement, he is disliked with equal passion on the other side of America’s wide political chasm.
Foes bemoan his penchant for ruling by executive decree, his use of the Justice Department to prosecute opponents, his apparent obsession with fossil fuels and climate change denial.
They also dislike his gutting of racial and gender diversity programs, and his taste for flexing US military power after campaigning as a man of peace.
“Since the last time we marched, this administration has dragged us deeper into war,” said Naveed Shah of Common Defence, a veterans association connected to the “No Kings” movement.
“At home, we’ve watched citizens killed in the streets by militarised forces. We´ve seen families torn apart and immigrant communities targeted. All of it done in the name of one man trying to rule like a king.”
Springsteen in Minneapolis
Organisers say more than 3,000 rallies are planned, in major cities and in suburbs and rural areas — even in the Alaskan town of Kotzebue, above the Arctic circle.
Minnesota is a key focal point, months after becoming ground zero for the national debate over Trump´s violent immigration crackdown.
Legendary rocker Bruce Springsteen, a fierce critic of the president, is scheduled to perform his song “Streets of Minneapolis” in the twin city of St. Paul, the capital of the northern state.
Springsteen wrote and recorded the protest ballad in just 24 hours in memory of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two US citizens shot dead by federal agents during January protests against Trump´s immigration offensive.
What began in 2025 as a simple day of defiance has mushroomed into a “No Kings” movement of national resistance to Trump.
Organisers say two-thirds of those who plan to rally Saturday do not live in big cities, which in America are often Democratic strongholds — a data point that is up sharply since the last protest.
- Zelenskiy continuing Gulf visit after arriving in Riyadh on Thursday.
- Qatar says Doha, Kyiv have signed defence cooperation agreement.
- UAE, Ukraine earlier agreed to cooperate on security and defence.
Ukraine on Saturday agreed to cooperate on defence with the United Arab Emirates and Qatar as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy travelled to both countries amid escalating tensions in the region.
Qatar’s defence ministry said in a statement on Saturday that Doha and Kyiv have signed a defence cooperation agreement, which includes the exchange of expertise in countering missiles and unmanned aerial systems.
Zelenskiy had earlier been to the UAE and met President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan as the two countries agreed to cooperate in the fields of security and defence.
“Our teams will finalise the details,” Zelenskiy said on the Telegram app with reference to the UAE discussions.
Ukraine, which now has years of experience shooting down Russian drones and missiles, was close to clinching several security agreements to counter Iranian attacks, its foreign minister Andrii Sybiha had told Reuters on Friday.
The US-Israeli war on Iran has killed more than 2,000 people, upended global markets and spurred Iranian retaliatory strikes that have effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz and targeted several countries across the Gulf with missiles and drones.
Zelenskiy had first arrived in Saudi Arabia on Thursday where the two countries also signed an agreement on defence cooperation.
- After Oli’s arrest, supporters staged protest rallies.
- Oli had resigned after fatal protests last September.
- Police say Oli and Lekhak will be brought to court Sunday.
KATHMANDU: Nepal’s former prime minister, KP Sharma Oli, was arrested on Saturday as police investigate whether he was negligent in failing to prevent dozens of deaths in a crackdown on Gen Z-led anti-corruption protests last September, said officials.
Oli’s arrest, which his lawyer said was illegal and sparked protests by supporters who clashed with police, followed rapper-turned-politician Balendra Shah’s swearing in as prime minister on Friday and a recommendation by a panel investigating violence during the protests that he should be prosecuted for negligence.
His former home minister, Ramesh Lekhak, was also arrested.
76 people were killed last September during a police crackdown and arson and violent unrest during the protests, which led to Oli’s resignation.
After his arrest on Saturday, supporters staged protest rallies and clashed with police who tried to stop them burning tyres near the prime minister’s office. Police lobbed a teargas shell and used batons to break up the protests, injuring one person, witnesses said.
Oli’s Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) called his arrest illegal and said it was an act of “revenge”. It demanded his immediate release and said more protests were planned for Sunday.
Shankar Pokhrel, a senior party official, told reporters that protest notes against the arrest would be handed to the government in all 77 districts of the country on Sunday.
Home Minister Sudan Gurung dismissed the criticism, saying on Facebook: “It is the beginning of justice. The country will take a new direction now.”
Election defeat
Oli was prime minister four times between 2015 and 2025 but never served a full five-year term. In 2020, he published a new political map including in it a small stretch of disputed land controlled by India, giving him a popularity boost in Nepal.
His popularity did not last, and he was beaten by Shah in his home constituency in an election this month, his second defeat since the restoration of multi-party democracy in 1990. Anger over the deaths in September’s protests helped Shah’s Rastriya Swatantra Party win the election by a landslide.
The panel investigating last September’s violence held Oli and Lekhak responsible for not taking any action to stop hours of firing on the protesters by police.
Police spokesperson Om Adhikari said Oli and Lekhak would be brought to court on Sunday.
Oli, 74, who has had two kidney transplants, has been transferred to a hospital from the police office where he was first taken, witnesses said.
His lawyer, Tikaram Bhattarai, told Reuters that the arrest was unwarranted and would be challenged in the Supreme Court.
“They have said it (the arrest) is for investigation. It is illegal and improper because there is no risk of him fleeing or avoiding questioning,” he said.
Lekhak and his lawyer could not immediately be reached for comment.
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